


Whatever You Need

by Lady_of_the_Refrigerator



Series: Whatever You Need [1]
Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, F/M, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Oral Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2014-03-20
Packaged: 2018-01-06 11:23:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1106231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_of_the_Refrigerator/pseuds/Lady_of_the_Refrigerator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each and every time she turned to him since they started working together, Red knew what she needed better than she had and played the role to perfection without even being asked. This time… This time she needed something more than to pretend for a few minutes that nothing had changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not entirely sure what this is, lol. I started writing it after the third or fourth episode and went through a fun couple of months being Jossed and attempting to retcon the darned thing, before finally deciding to place it pretty solidly post-1x07, pre-everything else. This is by far the smuttiest thing I've ever written and I'm a little, I don't know... weirded out by that? Go easy on me. XP

She should have guessed it was too good to be true that Tom was completely innocent. Too easy. Every loose end stuffed in a box and tied up in a neat little bow, with the label ‘ _IT WAS REDDINGTON_ ’ tacked on. Of course it couldn’t be true. The only thing neat about Raymond Reddington was his clothing. Everything else was a tangled mess of contradictions and secrets not even the US government was capable of untangling. He was a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in designer shades and a six-button vest.  
  
When Liz found herself at Red’s door after he sent her the Angel Station file, she’d been numb. Tonight, she was anything but numb, and yet here she was.  
  
She couldn’t explain what drew her to Red in particular, other than the fact that he was quickly becoming the only port in the storm that was her life. Whether that was by design or happenstance, she didn’t know. She wasn’t sure she wanted to anymore. If she knew, she was afraid she’d feel even more adrift than she already did.  
  
That was a terrifying thought.  
  
Dembe answered the door for her, of course. He hesitated to let her in, which probably had something to do with how she reacted after the Gina Zanetakos fiasco. He clearly wasn’t in the mood for another falling-out between her and Red. She didn’t blame him. A falling-out between her and Red usually came with a body count attached. “Come on. I need to talk to him.”  
  
“Lizzy.” Liz peered past Dembe’s shoulder to see Red standing in the entryway. “What a pleasant surprise.” His tone made it obvious it was far from a surprise. Hell, at this rate, it was becoming a tradition. “Dembe, I can handle it from here.” Dembe eyed Liz warily, but nodded to Red and left. Liz suppressed a flinch when she heard the lock slide shut behind her.  
  
Red leaned against the console table in full-on relaxed Reddington mode, arms crossed nonchalantly, vest unbuttoned, shirt undone far enough she could see his chest hair… He wasn’t even wearing shoes, and she would have bet good money he slept with them on for ease of escape.  
  
“Can I get you anything? Cup of tea, glass of wine, something stronger?” He was feeling her out, she could tell. The first time she turned to him like this, she needed a distraction while she screwed up the courage to confront Tom about the murder. The second time, that day in the park when he held her hand, what she needed more than anything was something to ground her and make her feel if only for a moment that she wasn’t completely alone. Each and every time since they started working together, Red knew what she needed better than she had and played the role to perfection without even being asked. This time… This time she needed something more than to pretend for a few minutes that nothing had changed.  
  
This time she was _furious_ , and she had no outlet for her anger. He was all she had left. She needed him and she hated herself for it. The irony pained her.  
  
“Why? Why did you have to choose me?” She cringed at how broken she sounded. That wasn’t at all what she wanted. He opened his mouth to answer, but she waved him off; she didn’t think she could deal with more obfuscations to unravel. “I know, it’s because I’m _special_ , because of my father, because of whatever cryptic half-truth best serves your purposes this week. I’m sorry, Red, but it’s just not good enough. Not anymore.”  
  
“Well, I’m sorry, Lizzy, but it’s going to have to be. If I showed my hand all at once, I’d outlive my usefulness very quickly, you know that. I’m risking twenty years of work—“  
  
“You’re risking my _life_.”  
  
“No. Never that. I have no interest in hurting you. You’re safe with me.”  
  
“This doesn’t feel safe. I haven’t felt safe in a long time.”  
  
His brows drew together in sympathy and, worse, understanding. “What is it you want, Lizzy?” Suddenly, she was shoulder to shoulder with him in the park again, his voice low and full of real emotion as he assured her she could trust him.    
  
“I want a time machine. I want to go back to what my life was like before I knew you. My life is in ruins because of you.”  
  
“Your life is in ruins because of your husband,” he said. “Without me, sure, you’d be basking in the glow of quiet domesticity, profiling run-of-the-mill bad guys by day, in bed by 11 PM every weeknight so your dear, sweet, treacherous husband could get up early to teach a room full of fourth graders long division, the most exciting hour of your week spent watching _Cutthroat Kitchen_ on Sunday nights. But your life would’ve still come apart at the seams eventually and it wouldn’t at all have been my fault. Really, you should be thanking me. I saved you a lot of heartache.” He shook his head, pityingly. “You could be raising a child with that man right now, Lizzy.”  
  
The sound of the slap echoed in the small entryway. If not for the blood trickling from his split lip, Red would have seemed completely unfazed by the blow. Without breaking eye contact, he reached into his pocket, withdrew a handkerchief, and pressed it to his lip.  
  
“I’m surprised you’re still wearing those.”    
  
She wrenched the rings from her finger and whipped them at his chest; he caught them as they fell with his free hand without so much as a flinch. She growled in frustration and stalked past him, pacing. “Will you stop being so goddamn self-possessed?”  
  
“What would you have me do? Scream? Cry? I’m not about to shed any tears over Tom Keen. He was never good enough for you.”  
  
“Who are you to judge who’s good enough for me?”  
  
“I am an _excellent_ judge of character.”  
  
“You’re an asshole.”  
  
“That, too.”  
  
She stared at him and he stared back, calm, unblinking, a still counterpoint to the nervous energy coursing through her. He folded his handkerchief over on itself and reapplied it to his lip.  
  
“I shouldn’t’ve come here,” she said suddenly, moving for the door. He caught her hand as she pushed past him.  
  
“Lizzy…” His gaze burned her, the intensity of it discomfiting in its intimacy; she had to turn away. “Since I can’t give you what you want, is there anything you need? Anything at all to help you through this? If it’s within my power to give it to you, I will. I owe you that, at least.” His thumb rubbed gently at the juncture between her palm and wrist; the edges of her scar tingled.  
  
Liz bit back a frustrated scream. His compassion had a tendency to rear its not-so-ugly head at the most inopportune times. Right now, his compassion was the last thing she wanted. She wanted to punish him. For what, exactly, she didn’t know. For insisting they were the same and seeking to ensure it, maybe. For confusing her. For looking at her the way he looked at her. For the hot and cold rush that ran through her whenever they touched.  
  
Without the added inch his shoes usually gave him, he seemed oddly small—short, even. He was far from physically imposing in general, but she knew better than most that looks were most definitely deceiving where he was concerned. Which made what she did next reckless in the extreme, more reckless even than stabbing him had been.  
  
She spared half a thought as to why Dembe hadn’t come back in with all the commotion and then launched herself at Red, catching him off-guard and off-balance. Her rings pinged against the furniture as they went down, rolling quickly out of sight. The landing dazed them both, temporarily. It seemed for a while that she recovered more quickly, but she soon realized that he was simply making no real effort to do anything more than half-heartedly defend himself against her attacks.  
  
“Fight back, you bastard!”  
  
“I told you,” he said, fending off another blow. “I have no interest in hurting you.”  
  
“You’ve hurt me every other possible way. Why not this?”  
  
His face darkened. In an instant, he had her on her back, his weight distributed strategically to immobilize her without injury. “If what you need is to take some of your anger and frustration out on me—even though it should probably be directed elsewhere—again, I’m happy to oblige. But believe me when I tell you I mean you no harm.”  
  
He loosened his hold on her to prove his point. She stared up into his self-satisfied face and something inside her snapped. With a growl, she pulled herself up into range with a hand on the back of his neck and kissed him. Hard.  
  
His entire body tensed. He’d braced himself for a punch or a head butt, not a kiss. She took advantage of that millisecond of shock and flipped them over again. Their teeth clashed painfully as his back hit the ground. When she pulled away, she had the lingering taste of blood in her mouth. Thankfully, it seemed like it was mostly his.  
  
He’d lost track of his handkerchief during their tussle, so he prodded at his injured lip with his fingers. It was bruised now as well as bloodied. “Brava, Lizzy. I wasn’t sure you had it in you.” He was entirely too fascinated by the blood on his fingers as far as she was concerned, so she grabbed him roughly by the wrist and pinned his arm to the floor next to his shoulder. She glanced over to find his other hand mirroring the one she already had pinned. She narrowed her eyes at him; his only response was a raised eyebrow. Leaning further forward, she pinned that one down as well.  
  
Red pushed against her hold, testing it. For reasons she couldn’t fathom, he looked pleased. Straining up at the neck, he leaned in as close as he could to whisper in her ear. “Now that you have me in such a… compromising position… what do you plan to do with me?”  
  
She didn’t enjoy the jolt his whispered question sent through her body, or rather she _did_ enjoy it and that made her wary. She had one of the world’s most notorious criminals flat on the floor of his own hotel room and all she could think about were the delicious tingles his voice sent down her spine. She shoved herself back into a sitting position, sacrificing her hold on his wrists to put some distance between their faces. It had the unfortunate side effect of eliciting a sound from him she might have mistaken for a grunt of pain if she didn’t have ample evidence it was… rather the opposite. She would have blushed if she weren’t already flushed from head to toe.  
  
She settled more of her weight onto him and the groan that rumbled through his chest couldn’t have been misconstrued even if she wanted to. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. As much as he cut a fine figure in his impeccable three piece suits and hats, seeing him like this—disheveled, pupils dilated, blood smeared across his chin, and a flush creeping down his neck—made her heart pound. A frisson of power shot through her as she realized he still had his arms bent up near his head as though she’d actually restrained them.  
  
Locking eyes with him, she rocked her hips against him deliberately and bit back a groan of her own. There was a challenge in his eyes, silently urging her to do it again. She couldn’t help but oblige.    
  
She settled into a rhythm, digging her fingers into his shirt for purchase as she ground against him. She must have pulled at some of his chest hair, because he bucked up into her and his hands flew down to her hips; they didn’t grip or guide her, just rested there, a warm, grounding presence.  
  
His eyes slid shut and he arched his neck; the angry pink of the scar she’d given him drew her attention like a magnet. She leaned forward and latched her mouth onto it with a moan, tracing the edges of the scar with her tongue. He bucked against her then, once, twice, three times in quick succession, the new angle sending shockwaves of pleasure through her. Her teeth sunk into his neck reflexively as she ground down against him and all of a sudden, he went boneless, chest heaving as he came down from his peak. He huffed out a breathless chuckle as she pulled back and smiled a slow, languid smile, his eyes heavy-lidded and warm.  
  
“You certainly have unconventional methods of punishment, Lizzy,” he said, while tracing lazy patterns on her thighs with his thumbs. “Not that I’m complaining this time. I’d be more than happy to reciprocate if you haven’t,”—she looked away, blushing even redder than she ever thought possible—“Ah. I had a feeling that wasn’t a problem. I’d be happy to reciprocate anyway.”  
  
“I should go.”  
  
“You probably should.” She made to climb off him, but he tightened his grip on her hips for the first time. “But you could stay.” He looked up at her, the cautious hope in his eyes making him look oddly young.  
  
What did she have to lose by staying, really? If Cooper and Ressler had lingering suspicions she and Red were in cahoots from the beginning, it would fan those flames a bit, but she’d proven her usefulness by now as much as Red had. If it got her tarred with the same ‘necessary evil’ brush as Red, so be it. If it truly hindered her career later, she wasn’t so sure she cared much anymore. If a wanted criminal could demand to work with her and she could be served up on a silver platter as easily as she had been, well… It didn’t exactly give her any confidence her employer wouldn’t use her in other ways, too.  
  
She would either be famous for her association with Reddington or infamous, but it certainly wouldn’t be decided by one lonely night. She nodded hesitantly. He smiled and hauled himself up to kiss her properly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lizzy muses about kissing Red, and more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, so... this was originally intended as a one-shot, but here we are again. At the rate I'm going, there should be one more chapter after this. (I'm still more than a little embarrassed as far as the content goes. DON'T LOOK AT ME.)

Near the end, Tom’s kisses were often placating, a distraction, a means to an end. The day Liz noticed how often his attempts at romance were purposely timed to divert her attention away from something suspect was the day she let herself admit it had always been that way, to some extent. It was little comfort that her tendency to be withdrawn and reserved about her feelings meant he hadn’t known her nearly as well as he thought he had. He still played her like a fiddle and embarrassingly well, at that.  
  
It wasn’t until Red, with his own calculated moments of physical contact, came into her life that she started to recognize Tom’s machinations. It took Red’s intentionally casual touches to realize how easy it would be to read Tom’s as intentional as well. The biggest difference in her mind between what the two men were doing was that Red never tried to hide it. She was a profiler, well-versed in psychology, and he was a criminal, a highly intelligent one. He knew her guard would be up around him by default and he wasn’t foolish enough to think she wouldn’t see his touches for what they were.  
  
He needed her to become accustomed to working with him in a very short amount of time, to be in tune with his signals, to be able to read, react, and play off him without a second thought. The contact served as a strange sort of crash course in how to deal with him, teaching her to be comfortable around him, to follow his lead, and it was vital to their success as partners, so she let him do it. It kept them both alive. And if somewhere along the line, his touches started to make her feel things other than a necessary familiarity with him? Well, she did her damnedest to try to ignore it.  
  
She couldn’t afford to let herself think there could be anything more to their relationship than what it was on the surface. It was one of many reasons she never considered what it would be like to kiss Red, not up until the moment it happened. A real, proper kiss—she didn’t count what she’d done earlier, which was more of a strategic maneuver than a kiss. She also didn’t count the odd, fleeting dream now and then, because she always woke up, confused and flustered, before anything really happened, and had trouble meeting his eyes the next day while she tried very hard to _not_ consider it.  
  
His well-timed, well-placed touches did nothing to prepare her for the reality of kissing him, because even if she had given it any thought, she would have expected it to fall in line with every other aspect of the man: deliberate, meticulous, methodical. As it turned out, that expectation couldn’t be further from the truth.  
  
Red’s kisses were anything but premeditated. The urgent slide of his lips against hers, the way he clutched her to him like he was afraid she might disappear, the little moans and sighs she drew out of him when she nipped here or sucked there—everything felt so spontaneous, so decidedly unplanned, it made her light-headed. This man had offered himself up to her as a punching bag and now he relinquished even more of his vaunted self-control and kissed her not with artifice or ulterior motive, but with passion and yearning, because he wanted to, wanted _her_. She hadn’t been kissed with such obvious desire for years. Perhaps ever.    
  
Again, when compared to Raymond Reddington, Tom Keen came up lacking in the worst possible way.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Red said when he pulled back, wiping a smudge of his blood from her chin. His lip looked sore and raw, but he didn’t seem to mind. “I didn’t think I’d ever get the opportunity to do that. I got a little carried away.”  
  
“It’s fine. More than fine. If anyone got carried away tonight, it’s me.”  
  
He cupped her cheek and smiled. “You have my permission to get carried away with my person in that way whenever you like.” He had that reverent look in his eye, like she hung the moon and the stars, like if he let her go and turned away at the same time, she might fade away like the wisps of a dream upon waking. She still wasn’t ready to accept what it might mean; no one ever looked at her like he did, like she _mattered_ , and she was afraid to put a name to it for fear of being wrong again.  
  
“Come on,” she said, uncomfortable both from his attention and the awkward position they were still in on the floor, “we can’t stay here all night.”  
  
“Mmm. Five more minutes,” he said, hooking his chin over her shoulder and occasionally turning to press languid kisses along her neck.  
  
“If you fall asleep on me, you’re going to regret it.”  
  
She felt his chuckle rumble through his chest. “I don’t doubt it.”    
  
She wondered if post-orgasmic Red was always this blissful or if it was because of her. The thought that it was possibly—probably—the latter made her stop him when he moved to stand up and press her lips to his in a desperate, needy kiss. She only pulled away far enough to rest her forehead against his, the fingers of one hand tangled in his shirt collar and the other threaded through the hairs at the nape of his neck that were just long enough to grasp. She trailed a hand down to play with the hair at the open v of his shirt as she waited for her breathing to return to normal.  
  
His lips twitched in an amused little smirk. “I thought you wanted to get up.”  
  
She tore her gaze away from his chest to search his face. “I don’t know why you let me do that to you earlier,” she said, running a thumb gently over his split lip.  
  
“Besides the obvious?” She snorted and nodded. “Your world is spinning out of your control. You deserve to have some of it back, if only for a few minutes.”  
  
“Thank you,” she said.  
  
When he tried to stand again she didn’t stop him. He reached a hand down to help her up as well, steadying her when she faltered from rising too quickly. “You OK?” he asked, cradling the back of her head. She nodded and he twitched another smile. “Help yourself to anything in the suite. I won’t be more than fifteen minutes.”  
  
She watched him disappear into the bedroom without shutting the door behind him and a few moments later, she heard the shower turn on. She took a deep, calming breath and let it out slowly. Was this where she envisioned the night ending when she decided to come here? Certainly not consciously. She wasn’t entirely sure where she stood on the issue subconsciously, but she never would have guessed venting her frustrations would include attacking and essentially seducing the FBI’s Most Wanted Number Four on the floor of his hotel suite.  
  
Did she regret what they’d done?  
  
No. Not at all. A little thrill ran through her at the thought of a repeat performance, preferably with more skin and less blood.  
  
She sighed. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, she felt drained, emotionally and physically. She stifled a yawn and made her way to his bedroom.  
  
Red’s customary blankets lay folded across the foot of the bed. Despite all they’d experienced together over the past few months, whenever she caught a glimpse of them, it felt like she’d been inadvertently made privy to a hidden corner of his psyche, a secret place that people like Ressler, with his disregard for profiling, skipped right over. At night, Raymond Reddington needed the warm comfort of blankets in order to feel safe.  
  
He was so often larger than life. The fact that he could need something as simple as blankets, or someone as ordinary as herself, was very difficult to wrap her mind around. She felt almost embarrassed by the knowledge, because it spoke of a desire for security she herself knew all too well. The humanity—the normality—of it made it hard for her to breathe.  
  
To distract herself, she searched through the dresser for something suitable for her to sleep in, all the while fighting the urge to profile the man even further based on the way he organized his underthings. Sometimes she wished the analytical part of her brain came with an off switch. When she was tired, her deductions had a tendency to make less and less sense.  
  
Suddenly, the shower stopped running. She hastily grabbed a pair of boxers and a tank top and changed into them as quickly as her sore limbs would allow, before peeling back the blankets and crawling into bed.  
  
He stopped short when he emerged from the bathroom, a split second of surprise flitting across his face when he noticed her there, but it was swiftly replaced with a pleased smile. “I see you’ve made yourself at home.”  
  
He slid under the covers quickly, as if he was afraid if he hesitated, she would leave. She had a brief flash of what he might have been like as a young man, less sure of himself, more vulnerable. It made her reach out to him, running her hand up and down his arm where his t-shirt sleeve clung snuggly around his bicep. His skin was soft and shower-warm, and he smelled faintly of soap. She leaned forward and brushed her lips against his in a sleepy kiss that he returned in kind.  
  
“I think I should warn you. I’m not a sound sleeper.”  
  
“That makes two of us.” He pushed her hair back from her temple and let his hand linger there for a few moments. “It’s been a long couple weeks. Maybe now you can find some peace, at least for a little while.”  
  
She tucked herself into his side and rested her head on his chest, letting the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest lull her to sleep.  
  


* * *

  
  
Liz woke a few hours later to find herself spooned against Red’s back, her fingers toying absently with the hair on his belly where his t-shirt had ridden up in his sleep. She started to pull her hand away but he caught it, bringing it back to his stomach. He laced his fingers with hers briefly, gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, then left it there to seek her bare leg behind him and knead the muscles of her thigh.  
  
Hesitant, she skimmed her fingers under the waistband of his pajamas, testing the waters. His hand stilled for a moment. She held her breath and waited for his reaction. When he moved to loosen the drawstring so his pants fell lower on his hips, allowing her better access, she breathed a sigh of relief and slid her hand further under the fabric. He was already half-hard.  
  
She shifted closer for a better angle, legs tangled with his, breasts pressed against his back. He pushed into her fist when she closed it around him, encouraging her to stroke him, which she did, feeling him stretch and swell against her hand, his skin shockingly hot. She hooked her chin over his shoulder; she could feel the tension in his body, hear his erratic breathing at her ear as she moved.    
  
“ _Lizzy…_ ” There was an edge to his voice and a raggedness to the movement of his hips that told her he was fast approaching the point of no return. She pulled her hand away and he made a strangled noise in his throat. She tugged at his shoulder and he turned, blindly seeking her lips with his while he settled himself between her thighs. She shoved his pajamas further down his legs while he did the same to the boxers she’d borrowed. Their hands clashed as they both reached to position him; after a few frantic moments of fumbling, he managed to align himself and push forward. They groaned into each other’s mouths as he finally slid inside her.  
  
She could feel him trembling against the urge to move and tightened herself around him; he sucked in a breath through his teeth, thrusting reflexively before he could stop himself.  
  
“ _Careful_ ,” he bit out, forcing his hips to still again. A few deliberate, calming breaths later and he rocked his hips, withdrawing almost completely before pressing back in, slow and steady.  
  
A twist of his hips at the end of each thrust ground his pubic bone against her. “ _Yes_ ,” she hissed, cheek pressed against his, as he continued like this, pace increasing a bit more every time she tightened her inner muscles. Still, she needed more of him, needed him closer, needed to forget just for a moment the wreck of her life and just _feel_. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, dug her fingernails into the skin of his ass, and rocked up to meet his downstrokes.  
  
It didn’t take much longer for her to tip over the edge. He followed soon after, groaning hoarsely when she bit him again.  
  
“Always with the teeth,” he said, breathless, once he could focus enough to speak. He brought his fingers to his neck to check if she’d broken the skin. She hadn’t, but it would likely develop into a nice addition to the collection of bumps, bruises, and scrapes she’d given him tonight. “You and your mouth—you get to have all the fun.”  
  
A slow, devious look spread across his face and it was a credit to how well and truly sated she was that she didn’t immediately figure out what he was up to when he started to slide down the bed.  
  
“Wait, you don’t have to— _oh my God_.”  
  
He was as thorough and as skillful with this as with anything else she’d seen him do. She had half a mind to protest further, but, really, it had been too long since anyone had done this for her with such obvious enthusiasm. Then he curled his fingers just so and conscious thought failed her once again.  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lazy mornings were so unusual for her, she didn’t know what to do with herself. In a way, it was actually reassuring when an insistent knock came at the door. It meant the world hadn’t changed as much as it felt like it had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This darned thing has really gotten away from me. There'll be one more chapter for sure, which I've already written the majority of, so hopefully there won't be as long a wait for it as there was for this. Also, I'd like to thank everyone for their feedback on this and my other stories. I'm really no good at responding to reviews and such—I'm incredibly shy and never know what to say—but every last one is appreciated. (I'm a bit more in my element on tumblr. If you're interested, you can find me there at iwouldlovetoeatyourtoast, where I have a slightly higher chance of being interactive.)

They slept like the dead. It shouldn’t have really surprised her considering how much energy they’d expended the night before, but in her life, long stretches of undisturbed sleep were rare. She gathered the same was probably true for Red, too, though the sources of his sleep disturbances were likely rather different from hers, even if her reasons for sleepless nights had changed in the past few weeks.  
  
There was no more Tom with his “helpful” habit of opening the drapes at the crack of dawn, no Hudson with his slobbery tongue or sharp, excited bark, no reason at all for her to do anything other than turn over and drift back to sleep whenever she stirred. Even the muted sunlight that leaked around the edges of the shades was soothing instead of harsh.  
  
Lazy mornings were so unusual for her, she didn’t know what to do with herself. In a way, it was actually reassuring when an insistent knock came at the door. It meant the world hadn’t changed as much as it felt like it had.  
  
Dembe’s muffled voice called from the hall, “Mr. Reddington?” A pause, another knock, and then, “Raymond?”  
  
“Red, wake up,” she said, nudging his shoulder. “Dembe’s at the door.” He gave no indication that he heard her, so she nudged him harder and only earned a half-hearted grunt in reply. “Hey, come on. He’ll think we’ve killed each other and break the damn thing down if you don’t show yourself.” He gave a sleepy harumph and burrowed his head into the pillows.  
  
She blew out a breath through her lips, annoyed. She really didn’t want to be the one to answer Dembe, but as Raymond Reddington had redefined nearly every aspect of life as she knew it over the past few months, it seemed only fitting that the self-conscious humiliation of the walk of shame would be redefined as well.  
  
She steeled herself and called out, “You can come in, Dembe, I’m sure you have a key.”  
  
She heard the lock snick open. Dembe peered into the bedroom, on guard and suspicious, but he relaxed visibly when he took stock of the man sleeping peacefully next to her.  
  
“Hi,” she said, pasting what she hoped was a cheerful smile on her face, but it probably never made it very far past sheepish. She held up a hand in an awkward sort of wave. “Good morning.”  
  
“Good morning, Agent Keen.” His lips twitched in amusement, and she hugged her knees to her chest, silently cursing Red for sleeping through this. “Feeling better?” he asked.  
  
She scrubbed a hand over her face and shot him a tight, forced smile. “What did you need? We’re… well…” Words failed her. Everything she could come up with amounted to some variation of ‘We’re indisposed at the moment because I fucked your boss into blissful exhaustion’ and that was just not something she was prepared to vocalize, even if she managed to be a lot less crude. Dembe seemed to get the idea, regardless.  
  
“Our intel checked out. Cooper is requesting Raymond’s presence as soon as possible to discuss the details. I believe he has been trying to contact you as well. Since around seven this morning.”  
  
“What time is it?”  
  
“Quarter to ten.”  
  
“Shit.”  
  
“Indeed.” He regarded her curiously for a moment, a faint smile on his face. “I’m glad to see you and Raymond worked things out.”  
  
She snorted, the embarrassed tension she felt since he knocked on the door slowly bleeding out of her. “That’s one way to put it.”  
  
Dembe took a moment to collect his thoughts before he spoke again. “Raymond needs you more than you realize, Agent Keen,” he said, his voice wistful but serious. “You may not believe me, but he’s been better since you started working together. Lighter. More purposeful. I think he could actually like the man he is when he’s with you.”  
  
Liz was taken aback, both by his sudden loquaciousness and his candor about Red. “I don’t know how to respond to that.”  
  
“You don’t have to. Consider it food for thought.”  
  
She looked down at Red, still seemingly asleep next to her. She laid a hand on his shoulder and nearly jumped out of her skin when he began to speak.  
  
“I hate to interrupt your charming little heart-to-heart, but I think I should remind you two that I am actually in the room.” He turned to smirk at Liz over his shoulder. “Morning, sweetheart.”  
  
She glared at him. “How long have you been awake?”  
  
“I don’t think you want me to answer that.”  
  
Liz slid down the bed, crossed her arms over her chest, and let out an annoyed huff. “You’re an asshole.”  
  
“We’ve been over that, I agree.” Red mirrored her posture, mimicking her irritated body language, and held her gaze. “Why is it you’re so disgruntled when I’m the one whose dirty laundry is being aired to all and sundry? Or were you hoping he’d let you in on a few more secrets before I woke up?”  
  
“You’re not going to deny what he said?”  
  
“That would be futile at this point, wouldn’t it? The cat’s out of the bag, so to speak.” He dropped his arms to the bed, fidgeting with the blanket over his thigh, no longer mocking her irritation. “You already knew I needed you. You’ve said so yourself.”  
  
He played it nonchalant and casual, confirming what Dembe said while brushing it off as something unremarkable, but his eyes betrayed him. Having her there with him wasn’t something he took lightly; she knew he needed her, yes, but his need for her ran deeper than whatever his objective was with his list. She didn’t believe that at the beginning, couldn’t let herself believe it, but now…  
  
She allowed herself to relax, unfolding herself from her tense, defensive position, and if her hand brushed his on the blankets, she pretended it wasn’t intentional, pretended not to notice he stopped fidgeting when she touched him.  
  
Dembe cleared his throat. “We shouldn’t keep Cooper waiting much longer. If he’s impatient enough to send someone to retrieve either of you and finds you here, Agent Keen, or your apartment empty…”  
  
He let the sentence hang and headed for the door.  
  
“Dembe,” Red said quietly, stopping him at the doorway. “I told you there was nothing to worry about, my friend.”  
  
Dembe gave Red a small smile, inclined his head to Liz, and ducked back out of the bedroom, pulling the door shut behind him.  
  
A charged silence fell over the two of them. They watched each other, both waiting for the other to move first. When she noticed her own gaze dropping to his lips, she looked away, brows furrowed. She felt her cheeks heat as she wondered if she could trust herself not to show her hand at the Post Office. If she caught herself staring before, when she had tried so very hard to avoid thinking about what it would be like to kiss him, she was going to have issues now that she knew first hand, and more besides.  
  
The back of his hand brushed hers, stopping her from worrying her scar. “You’re welcome to use my shower, Lizzy. The water pressure is exquisite.”  
  
His offer jolted her out of her musings. There would be time for soul-searching later, she hoped. She snatched up her trousers from the floor and scooted to the edge of the bed to pull them on, trying to ignore the feeling of his gaze on her back. She shrugged into her shirt and jacket over the tank top she borrowed from him.  
  
“As inviting as that sounds, I think it would be too much of a temptation for either of us. We’re late enough as it is,” she said. Also, it would be prudent if she didn’t walk into the Post Office smelling like Red’s shampoo.  
  
He chewed on the inside of his lip, his eyes lingering as she bent to pull on her boots. “Hmm. You might be right.”  
  
“I will borrow your bathroom before I leave, though,” she said, rounding the bed already.  
  
“Be my guest.”  
  
She closed the door behind her and leaned against it for a moment. She took a deep, steadying breath and checked her watch. If she hurried, she should be able to shower at home and still make it to the Post Office before 11:30. Quickly, she took care of her business and, with one last longing glance at his beautiful shower, she dried her hands and left the bathroom.  
  
She found Red at the foot of the bed, contemplating two ties he had laid out next to his suit.  
  
“What do you think, Lizzy, the green or the gray?”  
  
She shook her head at the absurdity of his question. He wanted her to help him choose his outfit? She wasn’t anyone’s wife anymore, least of all his. Still, she found herself playing along. She grabbed the ties, turned him towards the window to take advantage of the late morning sun, and held them up on either side of his face.  
  
She wouldn’t have called his eyes green, but the way they caught the sunlight and the rich, tiny green paisley pattern, she could actually understand why the FBI had them listed as such. “This one,” she said, “It brings out your eyes.”  
  
His fingers brushed hers when he took the ties from her. As she watched him put the gray one back in his wardrobe and pull out a dress shirt, a fleeting, thrilling, terrifying thought crossed her mind: she could get used to this.  
   
He glanced back at her absently with a faint smile on his face and did a slight double-take when he noticed her rising panic. He tossed his shirt on the bed. “Hey,” he said, a gentle hand cupping the back of her head. “What’s wrong?”  
  
She tried to work her mouth to answer him, but no sound came out, so she brought her hands up to his chest, absently tracing her way up to his shoulders, the soft cotton of his t-shirt soothing her, distracting her from the maelstrom of feelings swirling in her gut.  
  
“I don’t know what the hell we’ve gotten ourselves into here.”  
  
“If it makes you feel any better, neither do I.”  
  
She met his eyes, gave him a small, rueful smile. “I don’t know if I believe you.”  
  
He huffed a laugh and pressed his lips to hers in a brief, fervent kiss. “Go. I can afford to be fashionably late.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“Looks like Reddington had a little too much fun last night.”  
  
Liz looked up from the file on the latest Blacklister, barely registering what Meera had said. She followed her gaze to Red, who was chatting with a slightly nervous Aram, and it was all she could do to mask her horror at the sight of him. She thought he would have done something to hide or at least minimize the bruises on his face or the damn bite marks on his neck, but he obviously didn’t care one whit about waltzing into the Post Office flaunting every last scratch. She caught a glimpse of a row of small half-moon shaped cuts where she dug her nails into his scalp while he had his head buried between her legs and willed herself not to blush.  
  
She felt like a teenager about to be caught out by her parents, but with much more dire consequences. In the heat of the moment last night, she didn’t care much about the possible impact sleeping with Red would have on her job, but in the light of day, well… It would be a lot less stressful if it just stayed a secret.  
  
Meera waved a hand in front of her face to get her attention; she flinched. “Huh?”  
  
“You feeling all right? You look a bit peaky.”  
  
“I’m fine.”  
  
Meera narrowed her eyes at Liz. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous.”  
  
“What? No, I’m… I…” So much for not blushing. “I have no reason to be jealous of Red.”  
  
She still seemed dubious, but let the subject drop as Cooper and Ressler finally gathered them around to start the briefing.  
  
Ressler did a double-take when he saw the state of Red’s face. “What happened to you?”  
  
Red smiled blithely at Ressler, staying silent just long enough that it seemed he would ignore the question.  
  
“Agent Keen has a mean left hook,” he said, once he’d turned away to study the photos of the Blacklister taped to the glass wall.  
  
Liz’s jaw dropped before she could catch herself, but she managed to school her expression into something less mortified pretty quickly. Ressler eyed her with a speculative look on his face.  
  
“Oh, come on. You really think I punched him in the face?”  
  
“It wouldn’t surprise me if you had. There are people who’d pay good money to punch him in the face.”  
  
“I should set up a booth, help finance my next coup. For you, Lizzy, the first swing is free.” He leaned towards her, lifting his chin as if to give her a clear shot. The fondness in his eyes was entirely uncalled for.  
  
“Do you want me to hit you? Because I’m starting to see the appeal; I might just take you up on it.”  
  
“Stop flirting, you two,” Meera said. “We have work to do.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Liz waited until they were away from the prying eyes and ears of her colleagues, safely ensconced in the back of Red’s car on the way to meet his contact, before she tore into him.  
  
“What the hell do you think you were you doing in there? Most of these,”—she gestured vaguely to the various bumps and bruises on his body—“they look… Well, everyone can tell exactly what you’ve been up to. Why on earth would you want to link that image in their minds with me?”  
  
“Relax, Lizzy. Whatever I say, they’re going to assume I’m saying it to get a rise out of you. Put yourself in their shoes. If we were really sleeping together, would we rub it in their faces like that?”  
  
“Apparently, yes,” she snapped, still fuming. “I see your point about reverse psychology, but I hope you can see _my_ point that we don’t need to imply we’re sleeping together in order to convince them we’re not. Frankly, I can’t believe I’m even arguing with you about this. I—”  
  
“You’re right,” he said, cutting her off before she built up a head of steam, “I’ve seen the error of my ways. From now on I promise to be on my best behavior in front of your colleagues. Scout’s honor.” He held up his fingers in a perverse parody of a Scout sign.  
  
She narrowed her eyes. He capitulated far too quickly for it not to make her suspicious. “Are you trying to goad me into lashing out at you like last night?”  
  
He leaned back against the headrest and smiled across the seat at her, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. He didn’t deny it.  
  
 She shoved at his shoulder, annoyed. “You’re an ass.”  
  
“I thought you liked that about me. Or was it my ass you liked? I can’t remember.”  
  
She rolled her eyes and turned her gaze to the window, the hustle and bustle of the city fading into the distance. She could feel him watching her as they drove and, despite her anger, the attention still warmed her.  
  
After an interminable amount of time passed in silence, she felt him shift in his seat to reach for something in his pocket.  
  
“Dembe found your rings,” he said, his voice quiet. He held his hand out on the seat between them, the rings glinting in his palm. “I thought you might like to have them back, in case you wanted to sell them or bury them or toss them into Mount Doom.”  
  
She couldn’t help the half-amused snort that left her as she took the rings. They were warm from his body heat. Familiar. A touchstone of the wreck of her old life. She spun them around the middle of her index finger, the air heavy with anticipation while he waited to see what she would do with them.  
  
She jabbed at the button to lower her window and threw the rings as hard and as far as she could. Sure, it was an impulsive choice, but it felt like the right one. It felt like a turning point.  
  
 Red’s hand still lay open next to her thigh. Without thinking or looking his way, she reached down and took it, lacing their fingers together.  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You couldn’t sleep either?”
> 
> “I rarely can; it’s a problem.” His tone had an uncertain strain to it, almost as if he called without a concrete idea of what to say. For a man who had contingency plans for his contingency plans, it was strange to hear.
> 
> “And you’re calling because you ran out of Ambien?”
> 
> “Oh, trust me, Lizzy, I find you anything but sedating.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, so it got away from me again. :P There's one more chapter after this.

Night found Liz sprawled across the nondescript bed in the nondescript bedroom of her nondescript temporary apartment, flipping past infomercial after infomercial on late night TV. The day should have left her exhausted—Red’s contact had been colorful but skittish and it took some fancy footwork on both their parts to convince him to give up info on their Blacklister instead of running like a spooked gazelle—but she was much too wired for bed. Apparently she was so used to running on only a few hours sleep that her body didn’t know how to deal with having a full night of it to work with.  
  
She had plenty of productive things to do if she could find the motivation. The apartment could at best be described as organized chaos. All of the belongings she’d salvaged from the house she shared with Tom were stuffed hastily into boxes and shoved wherever they would fit, with only the bare minimum required to live unpacked to furnish the apartment. There was paperwork piling up on the small desk tucked into the corner of her room—files from the Post Office to analyze, forms to change her surname on her accounts that she’d been procrastinating filling out since the drama with Tom came to a head, various listings to look over for her apartment hunt—but she couldn’t seem to concentrate on any of it tonight.  
  
Her thoughts kept straying to Red. When they parted ways outside the Post Office after their meeting, they exchanged furtive smiles fueled by the exhilarated, satisfied rush of a job well done and she had been reluctant to climb out of his car to return to the world of bureaucracy and protocol. After the whirlwind of the last twenty-four hours, being debriefed by Cooper and translating the excitement of the day into dry facts for her report felt like an anticlimax. She shook her head. Red would make an adrenaline junkie out of her yet.  
  
She was on her third mindless cycle through the channels when her cellphone rang. She rolled her eyes when she saw Nick’s Pizza on the caller ID and answered the call.  
  
“Red, it’s one in the morning.”  
  
“Mmm, so it is. I’d apologize for waking you, but I don’t think I did.”  
  
She sighed. “No, you didn’t,” she said. She turned off the TV and flopped back onto the pillows, staring at the ceiling. “You couldn’t sleep either?”  
  
“I rarely can; it’s a problem.” His tone had an uncertain strain to it, almost as if he called without a concrete idea of what to say. For a man who had contingency plans for his contingency plans, it was strange to hear.  
  
“And you’re calling because you ran out of Ambien?”  
  
“Oh, trust me, Lizzy, I find you anything but sedating.” He fell silent. She could tell he hadn’t hung up on her, could still hear him breathing on the other end. She could almost see him chewing on the inside of his lip or perhaps tapping his fingers absently against his leg with his free hand, as he was wont to do on the rare occasion he was unsure of a situation. Perhaps he was even pacing.  
  
When he finally spoke again, his voice was low, just above a whisper. “I think you’ve spoiled me. Last night was… sublime. Now that I’ve had one perfect, blissful, restful night, my usual routine has lost what little was left of its appeal. Call me greedy, but I want more.”  
  
A dull, longing ache settled into her chest at his words; she had to stop herself from rubbing at it because, as strong as it was, it wasn’t actually physical pain and it would do nothing to ease it. She wanted more herself, but the thought terrified her. They’d stumbled their way into a very tricky situation. Where did they go from here?  
  
“What exactly do you want?”  
  
She expected grandiose promises or flowery language, expected him to downplay the improbability of their connection or assuage her doubts about his integrity, to persuade her to give them a chance or convince her of the depth of his feelings for her. Instead he said but three simple words:  
  
“Open the door.”  
  
Liz’s breath caught in her throat for a moment and then she was on her feet, quickly padding barefoot through the apartment. When she reached the door, she pulled it open with a bit more force than was strictly necessary. Red stood in the hall, looking vaguely bewildered to find himself there, like she usually felt when she came to him. He slipped his phone into his pocket and tapped his hat against his leg. He lacked his overly confident body language, his smugness, and his certainty. He also lacked a coat and his vest was unbuttoned; he’d obviously left his hotel in a hurry.    
  
They both moved at once, coming together at the mouth in a clash of teeth almost as painful as that first fateful pseudo-kiss. They gentled their attentions somewhat to ease the discomfort, but they were still aggressive, explosive, and nearly uncontrollable.  
  
Somehow they managed to get the door shut behind him and she pressed him against it. His hat hit the floor as he reached to pull her with him, one hand tangling in her hair, the other splaying across the strip of skin on her lower back between her shirt and her pajama bottoms.  
  
The hand at her back was like ice and she broke away with a gasp as a chill ran through her. Slowly, they came back to themselves, loosening grips and unclenching fistfuls of fabric, rubbing soothing patterns where they’d scrabbled for purchase and hung on just a bit too hard.  
  
“Are you always this eager or am I getting special treatment?” she asked, breathless, as she cupped him through his trousers.  
  
“You really have to ask? I still can’t quite believe this isn’t an extremely pleasant dream and I’m not about to wake up very alone and _very_ frustrated.”  
  
“You started driving a wedge between me and Tom the day I met you and I’m supposed to believe getting me into bed wasn’t part of your plan?”  
  
He quirked a cheeky smile, but his eyes were warm. “I would be lying if I told you I never thought about it, but fantasies are fantasies, something to help pass the time. You have exceeded my expectations in every way, Lizzy. I didn’t think you would ever be receptive to anything more serious than innuendo from me. Hoped, maybe, but—” He brought her wrist up to his mouth and pressed a kiss against her scar. “—I never counted on it by any means.”  
  
Liz shivered despite herself and shook her head to clear it. “What are we doing? We can’t run to each other every time we have a nightmare.”  
  
“You’re right. We can’t. But there’ll be plenty of unavoidable distance in the future, what with all the traveling and keeping up appearances. It would be a shame to waste this closeness while we have it. Tomorrow,” he said, “Tomorrow we’ll work on not making a habit of this. Tonight, I can’t seem to stop thinking about how much of a travesty it is that we still haven’t seen each other naked.”  
  
“Mmm,” she said, playing with the fabric of his shirt where it tucked into his pants, “I bet none of your fantasies involved me stabbing you in the neck or full-body tackling you in a fit of pique.”  
  
“Oh, you’d be surprised.” He leaned in so his lips brushed her ear when he spoke. “I have this absolute gem where you jam the security feed in The Box and use one of your highly effective, unconventional interrogation techniques on me while I’m shackled to that damn chair.”  
  
The timbre of his voice had her grabbing his waist to steady herself, every word sending another thrill of arousal through her body. It was a scenario she never thought of before, but now that he mentioned it, it lodged in her brain and refused to leave. She nearly choked at the intensity of it.  
  
He tilted her face so she would meet his eyes. “My, my, my, Agent Keen, what’s the matter? Is it something I said?”  
  
She growled low in her throat, hooked her hand around his belt buckle, and dragged him with her through the cluttered apartment.  
  
Once they reached her bedroom, she pulled out the desk chair and shoved him down onto it. Immediately, he gripped the seat and pressed his legs against the chair legs, looking up at her in delicious anticipation. She leaned down to meet his lips again; he still had that strange urgency to his kisses, reminding her more than anything else that they’d barely been intimate for more than a day.  
  
She collapsed onto his thighs and pulled back, chest heaving, resting her forehead against his while she tried to calm her thoughts before they got away from her. Barely more than a day together and they had the same effortless compatibility in this as they did on a job, anticipating each other’s wants and needs fluidly. It had taken weeks before things had really clicked between her and Tom and even then…  
  
No.  
  
Now was not the time to think about Tom.  
  
Tom and his duplicity didn’t belong anywhere near her bedroom anymore.  
  
Whatever Red’s ultimate agenda might be, however she might doubt his motives, his morality, at least she knew what he felt for her had never been feigned. Call it what you will—fascination, obsession, something else she dare not put a name to—it was _real_.  
  
From the moment she met him, she knew there was something, even if she couldn’t identify what it was. She had felt his attention like a caress. It exhilarated her no matter how much she tried to deny it to herself. The fact that they well and truly shouldn’t be sleeping together only heightened what was already there between them. It was a taste of the forbidden and she had always been drawn to it, like she had always been drawn to the intricacies of the criminal mind.  
  
When she really thought about it, this was just the next logical step in their relationship.  
  
Red nuzzled her neck, pressing small, soothing kisses there while he waited for her thoughts to settle. She took his head in her hands and brought his mouth to hers again, maneuvering him into a slow, drugging kiss, and he went along willingly, allowing her to direct it, direct him. When she pulled away, she tugged lightly on his still swollen bottom lip with her teeth and felt his forearms tense against her thighs as he gripped the chair tighter and let out a low, resonant groan that shot straight to her groin.  
  
She trailed her hands down to unbutton his dress shirt; he pushed back into the chair as far as he could to watch her, sucking in a breath when she reached the buttons covering his lower belly. She pushed the shirt and vest off his shoulders, hands smoothing over the warm, flushed skin there. On a whim, she shoved the clothing further down his arms, effectively trapping them against his body at the elbows.  
  
The tangled, twisted fabric framed his shoulders, emphasizing the breadth of them as well as the muscles flexing as he tested his bonds. A faded tattoo on his upper arm drew her attention and she mapped each inked line with teeth and tongue, lightly, methodically, and kissed her way up across his shoulder to the little pink scar on his neck to give it the same treatment. He moaned and twitched beneath her.  
  
She shifted back and he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers as he watched her work her hands between them—unbuckling his belt, undoing his fly, and finally slipping into his boxers to draw him out. She gave him a few quick strokes, just shy of establishing a satisfying rhythm, before pulling back and standing. He growled in frustration, but made no effort to follow her beyond arching his back into the chair.  
  
Keeping her eyes on him, she began to undress, deliberately taking her time, dragging her hands across her own heated skin as she slipped the clothing from her body. By the time she finished, Red was a mess—mouth parted, breathing ragged and shallow, eyes dilated and hungry, liquid beading at the tip of his cock and rolling down the length of it. He looked completely and utterly debauched.  
  
A familiar feeling of power surged through her at the sight of him. She’d done that to him. He let her do it. She squeezed her thighs together unconsciously and his cock lurched, his breath stuttering in his chest.  
  
She dropped to her knees, fingers gripping the waistband of his trousers and boxers. She tugged at them, dragging them down his thighs roughly with most of his weight still on them. A tap to his hips and he pushed himself up off the seat. She admired the way his biceps tightened with the effort. She pulled his trousers past his knees, nudging them further apart as she went, and left the clothing bunched and twisted around his calves.  
  
She rubbed her hand up and down his thigh, looking up at him much like he’d done after he saved her from The Stewmaker, but with his thigh flushed and naked beneath her hand, the context was shockingly different. She pressed her lips to the inside of his knee, beginning to trace a lazy trail of kisses up his body. Her breath played over his cock, but she moved on without touching it, continuing her way up his belly and chest.  
  
She settled herself onto his thighs again, casually resting her forearms on his shoulders, relishing the feeling of skin on skin. She smirked when she noticed his attention seemed to be focused rather solidly on her chest, which he had no hope of reaching without relinquishing his grip on the chair and ending their game. Taking pity on him, she pulled herself closer with a hand on the back of his neck so he could reach her breasts with his mouth. He gave them the same treatment she’d given his shoulder, all tongue and teeth and sucking mouth, the ache between her legs growing more unbearable by the second.  
  
When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she wrapped an arm around his shoulders for leverage, shifting to position him against her. He hissed in a breath while she slowly, agonizingly, sank down onto him until they were flush against each other from hips to chest.    
  
The sensation of him sliding inside her was maddening. Her nerve endings were on fire, every tiny shift sending a ripple of stimulation radiating through her entire body. It took every ounce of willpower not to move, because she knew as soon as she started she wouldn’t be able to slow down and she wasn’t prepared to be lose control of herself like that.  
  
“Oh my God,” she gasped, pressing her cheek against his, her fingers threaded through the short hairs at the nape of his neck.  
  
She felt him nod against her, his whole body tense as a bow string.  
  
“I know,” he breathed, “I know.”    
  
The muscles in her back and legs trembled from the effort of holding herself still. Everything inside of her cried out for friction; she allowed herself to relax, rocking against him just once, and she saw stars.  
   
She was lost. It was just as she thought it would be. Her hips moved of their own volition, grinding desperately against him, unable to slow or rein herself in. The hair on his chest rubbed at her nipples roughly, sending little shocks of pleasure through her in counterpoint to the rest. She buried her face in his neck and came apart with a muffled scream.  
  
Red’s stubble scratched at her cheek, rousing her from her drowsy, climax-induced haze. He spoke, but he sounded far away.  
  
“Hmm?”    
  
“Untangle me, Lizzy,” he said again, his voice strained, insistent.  
  
She stood on unsteady legs and clumsily freed his arms. Once he could move again, he gently brushed her shaking hands away from his trousers and took over, shedding the rest of his clothes as quickly as he could. He scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the bed, covering her body with his immediately. He slid back inside her, his weight on her welcome, comforting. A few deep, frantic thrusts and he came, choking out her name. He collapsed next to her in a breathless heap.  
  
They dozed. For minutes or hours, she couldn’t be sure. She was only aware of their tangled limbs and her sore muscles as she drifted in and out of sleep.  
  
Sometime later she woke up enough to use the bathroom, her legs still far more jelly-like than usual. She returned to find him awake as well, sitting up against the pillows properly, instead of sprawled out on top of the sheets where they fell.  
  
“You look like you belong there,” she said, realizing halfway through that she’d spoken aloud, but decided to finish anyway. “Except…”  
  
He watched her root around in her closet with an appreciative, curious expression on his face. She emerged with a couple folded blankets and proceeded to switch them out for her comforter. She tried not to feel self-conscious, which was no small feat with him watching her like he was, although there was no longer anything suggestive in his gaze, just admiration and something that looked a lot like wonder.  
  
He reached out for her hand when she climbed back into bed. “You didn’t have to do that.”  
  
“You’re right. I know. I wanted to.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meera poked her head into Liz’s office right as Liz was finally getting ready to leave.
> 
> “Liz, do you have a minute?”
> 
> Liz froze in the middle of putting on her coat with an arm stuck halfway in one of the sleeves. “I was just going to go grab some lunch,” she said, trying not to sound as whiny or frustrated as she felt. She’d been trying to escape the office for at least an hour and her hunger was starting to wear on her. She slid her arm the rest of the way into her sleeve and fiddled with her collar self-consciously.
> 
> Pasting on a smile, she asked, “What do you need?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :\ OK, I absolutely without a doubt fully intended Chapter 5 to be the last chapter. Even when it hit upwards of 4000 words it was *going* to be the last chapter, darn it, because of reasons. Especially because, unlike with past chapters, I just never managed to hit a good point to split it. Until tonight. Sooooo... instead of an unusually long chapter, you get a shorter one faster and a final one that should follow in a couple days barring unforeseen circumstances. I hope you enjoy and that it'll be worth the wait in the end.

The next day at work was a nightmare, but not in the traditional ‘whatever can go wrong, will go wrong’ way Liz had come to expect since her first day at the Post Office. In fact, the exact opposite seemed to be true. Everything went just about as well as could be expected—the intel from Red’s contact checked out, it looked like they’d be able to close in on the Blacklister by the end of the week, and it all happened with only the barest modicum of snark from Red aimed at the team.   
  
The fact that not being able to drag herself away from her desk for lunch was objectively the worst part of her day did little to calm her nerves. Having things run so smoothly set her teeth on edge. She couldn’t shake the unsettled feeling in her gut that her good fortune wouldn’t last much longer.  
  
Meera poked her head into Liz’s office right as Liz was finally getting ready to leave.  
  
“Liz, do you have a minute?”  
  
Liz froze in the middle of putting on her coat with an arm stuck halfway in one of the sleeves. “I was just going to go grab some lunch,” she said, trying not to sound as whiny or frustrated as she felt. She’d been trying to escape the office for at least an hour and her hunger was starting to wear on her. She slid her arm the rest of the way into her sleeve and fiddled with her collar self-consciously.   
  
Pasting on a smile, she asked, “What do you need?”  
  
“You meeting Reddington?”  
  
Liz frowned at the non sequitur and the nonchalant tone of Meera’s voice. Apprehension settled into her stomach, making her feel queasy.   
  
“For lunch? No.”  
  
Meera nodded, stepping further into the office and shutting the door behind her.   
  
“This won’t take long.”   
  
Meera’s actions belied her words; seconds ticked by while she watched Liz, her head tilted to the side like she was sizing her up. She’d been looking at her funny since the morning before and it was starting to make Liz uncomfortable.   
  
“Aram made an interesting observation while monitoring Reddington’s chip last night,” Meera said at last. She didn’t elaborate, just waited to see how Liz would respond.   
  
Liz’s stomach churned; she knew anything she said would only incriminate herself. It would be as little use denying Red’s location as it would be to explain it. There was no explanation, at least not one Meera would believe, and the last thing Liz needed was to give anyone a reason to start watching her and Red more closely.  
  
She lifted her chin and braced herself for the worst. “And?”  
  
“You have no reason to be jealous of Red, hmm?” Meera eyed Liz appraisingly. “It’s funny, I wouldn’t have taken you for the aggressive type, but then again I missed out on the pen incident… He liked that, didn’t he?”   
  
Liz felt her face heat. Knowing him, he probably had.  
  
“Look,” Meera said after watching Liz squirm for a while longer, “it’s my job to monitor Reddington, not you. Whatever you do when you’re off the clock is not my business. Up to and including him. But Aram and I aren’t the only ones who keep track of that chip and I guarantee no one else will be quite so _laissez-faire_ about whatever it is between you and Reddington. Aram came to me with this because he knew I would be discreet about it. I’d like the same courtesy in return.”   
  
“Of course. I understand.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Liz picked at a half-eaten bag of trail mix from the vending machine while she waited impatiently for Red to wrap up his meeting with Cooper. It was all well and good they’d insisted on speaking with each other in private. She wasn’t so sure she could contain her nervous energy or disguise her irritation at having been found out, even if Cooper still had no idea. The more she could avoid him, the better—at least until she and Red worked out what to do about their situation.  
  
She was off in an instant when she saw Red descending from Cooper’s office. Before he could say more than “ _Hello, Lizzy_ ”, she grabbed him by the elbow and started dragging him toward the elevator.   
  
“We need to talk.”  
  
“Uh oh. Who do they think I killed this time?” he asked, smirking at the hand on his arm. She didn’t normally manhandle him at the Post Office and he seemed to be enjoying it entirely too much.  
  
The door slid shut with a clang and he turned to loom over her, stepping even further into her personal space with a leer.   
  
“To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” he asked, his voice pitched in a low, gravelly purr, and it took all of her willpower not to close the rest of the distance between them.   
  
“Your goddamn tracking chip, that’s what,” she said sotto voce, berating herself mentally for even considering rising to his bait. They could be under surveillance even now, for God’s sake.  
  
He flinched almost imperceptibly away from her and she saw a flicker of unease in his eyes. Glancing quickly around the elevator, he reached up to remove her hand, giving it a subtle, apologetic squeeze before he let go and turned away. He slid his sunglasses on and waited at a much less conspicuous distance for the elevator to stop.  
  
“Skipping lunch is never a good idea, Lizzy. Low blood sugar makes you irritable,” he said, a casual hand at the small of her back ushering her out of the elevator. She started down the outdoor staircase at a good clip, forcing him to either raise his voice or speed up to keep up with her. He chose the former.   
  
“If I could put in a suggestion,” he called after her, “there’s a little hole-in-the-wall bakery a few blocks from here, serves the most mouthwatering spinach and feta croissants. They usually run out long before noon, but if you say I sent you, I’m sure they’ll manage to scrounge one up for you.”  
  
“I’ll think about it,” she called back, not even breaking her stride to offer him a glance over her shoulder to confirm she’d understood him.  
  
She reached her car and, beyond locking the doors, she did nothing to try leave, just sat there with her forehead against the wheel, wondering why she seemed fated to lead such a complicated life. She couldn’t even have a proper lunch break anymore without all this cloak-and-dagger crap. No, she had to kill time to put some distance between her secret lover and herself so it wouldn’t look like they were heading to the same place. She had half a mind to leave Red hanging, but that wouldn’t solve anything at all.  
  


* * *

  
  
The bakery was just as small and hidden away as she expected it to be, completely unremarkable from the outside and so easy to miss, it took her three trips around the block before she spotted it. By the time she walked in, Red had two steaming mugs of coffee and two croissants on a tray in front of him on the counter and he was talking the ear off the boy behind the cash register. When he noticed her, he waved her over to the closest table and bid the boy goodbye. She sat before he had a chance to set the tray down and pull her chair out for her.  
  
Her stomach growled audibly. The entire bakery smelled divine, sweet and savory baked goods alike, and her mouth watered while he set the plates and mugs on the table in front of her. She’d already made a good deal of headway on her croissant when he came back from returning the tray.  
  
He took a bite of his own croissant, chewing thoughtfully as he watched her nearly inhale her food.  
  
“I’m going to assume because we’re here and not currently being interrogated by Cooper’s flunkies that whoever noticed my whereabouts last night was open to being persuaded to keep silent.”  
  
She nodded, her mouth too full to even attempt to answer him verbally. He slid the rest of his croissant across the table to her and took a long sip from his coffee.   
  
“I’d put my money on Agent Malik.”  
  
“And Aram,” she said, finally coming up for air. “We were lucky this time, but we can’t be reckless like that anymore.”  
  
“Says the woman who frogmarched me across the Post Office not half an hour ago. What’s the matter, can’t keep your hands off me in public?”  
  
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself. You’ve already established that you have no regard for my personal space, but if I start acting like that, they’re bound to notice. This can’t happen again. Meera suspected even before she had evidence from the tracking chip. We can’t risk your whole list over this.”  
  
“My list is a means to an end, Lizzy. If I decide—”  
  
“ _Red_. You can’t pretend you don’t care about compromising your plan, whatever it is. It’s more important to you than the two of us.”  
  
He blinked, taken aback, the corners of his lips turned down in a hint of a frown.   
  
“You don’t know that,” he said quietly. “Priorities change.”  
  
“But yours haven’t.”  
  
“They have. They’ve become… complicated.”  
  
“As if they weren’t already.”  
  
“Not like they are now,” he said, his frown deepening. He was worried, all of his strange nervous tics out in full force. She could almost see the thoughts whizzing around behind his eyes as he searched for a way to persuade her not to call the whole thing off. She had no intention of doing so, and as nice as it was in theory to see him squirm for once, in practice it was much less satisfying.  
  
“I told you, I expected you would work with me, that your curiosity or perhaps your sense of duty would convince you our work was worth the trouble it would bring. I didn’t expect this,” he said, reaching for her hand across the table. “Not in a thousand years.”  
  
He seemed mollified when she didn’t pull her hand away, even more so when she turned it over so she could grasp him back.  
  
“You’re gonna have to find a way to keep me in the loop on your choice of hideaways. If this is going to work, I’m going to have to come to you,” she said, taking a purposely nonchalant sip of coffee.  
  
A slow, relieved smile spread across his face and he relaxed back into his chair. He shook his head, returning her gaze over the top of her mug, looking for all the world as if he couldn’t believe his luck.  
  
“You know, it’s a shame I haven’t established a habit of kissing you passionately in public.”  
  
“We still have to get through the rest of the day, you ass. Don’t put ideas in my head.”  
  
“Can I interest you in some dessert?” He chuckled when she narrowed her eyes at him. “Dessert dessert, Lizzy,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder at the display case. “I am capable of going more than a sentence without making an innuendo.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Red’s latest place was off the beaten path to say the least. Liz’s GPS tried to murder her twice by telling her to turn onto roads that didn’t exist; she made a mental note to make sure to update its maps at her first opportunity. She found herself on his doorstep at quarter to twelve that night, beyond frazzled and in need of a good, long shower.  
  
Dembe greeted her at the door with a nod and a smile and moved aside without hesitation, taking her overnight bag from her and showing her in.   
  
_What a difference a few days make_ , she thought, a wry smile on her face as she followed the quiet man up the stairs.  
  
“Lizzy!” Red stood in the doorway of what she assumed was his bedroom, with reading glasses perched low on his nose and a book in his hand with a finger marking his place. He wore pajama bottoms and a t-shirt like he had in his hotel room; her breath caught in her throat as she took him in from head to toe and back again. He looked pleased when she finally reached his eyes. “I wasn’t sure you were going to make it tonight after all.”  
  
“To be honest, neither was I.” She approached him with an odd sort of caution to match the edginess she’d felt all day. She ran her hand up to cup his cheek, rubbing at the faint traces of stubble along his jaw. He hadn’t given her any reason to feel the need to walk on eggshells around him, but she could feel energy coiled inside him as if he was trying to avoid spooking her. She pressed a kiss just below his ear and whispered, “Were you worried or were you nervous?”  
  
He let out a breath and with it some of the tension in his posture seemed to fade away; his hand came up to rest gently at her hip.   
  
“Both,” he said, just as quietly. “But mostly worried. This isn’t an easy place to find even in broad daylight. I would have sent Dembe for you, but I didn’t think you’d appreciate the presumption.”  
  
“The shower better be as nice as the last one.”  
  
“Would you expect any less?” He caught her hand as she moved past him into the room. “Tomorrow will be easier,” he said, tracing her scar with his thumb. “I’m glad you came.”  
  
“So am I.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re the king of making profound statements that explain everything and nothing at the same time.”
> 
> He quirked a smile. “Are you trying to tell me you find me frustrating, Lizzy?”
> 
> “You have no idea.”
> 
> “Oh, I think I do,” he said, his eyes crinkling with amusement as he spoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It didn't get away from me this time, woohoo! But I did spend almost as much time this past week working on the beginning of a sequel as I did this chapter. So that is on the horizon, but I can't give a timeline because it's going to be a little more complicated to write than this was. (It *probably* won't be the next Lizzington story I post, though.) Thank you so much to everyone who's followed this story along the way. Hope you enjoy!

“OK, so I guess the shower really did live up to your…”  
  
Liz trailed off when she noticed Red had fallen asleep. He’d been propped up against the pillows reading when she headed for the shower; now his book lay open on his chest and his glasses had slipped down the bridge of his nose. He had one arm stretched out toward the empty side of the bed.  
  
Sleeping peacefully as he was, he seemed so… human. Not so much the larger-than-life caricature he presented to the world as a shield, but a man with strengths and vulnerabilities like any other. She felt a familiar ache settle in her chest as she watched him.  
  
His glasses were making him snore softly. Carefully, she slid them off his face and placed them on his bedside table. She searched around for something to mark his place in his book, all the while marveling at how quickly they had slipped into such an easy domestic routine even in the face of the precarious nature of their situation.  
  
Because as tense as her day had been, now that she was here, she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.  
  
Setting his book down, she crawled under the covers and, despite her best efforts to avoid disturbing him, he stirred when the mattress dipped under her weight. He turned onto his side and curled around her, tucking his legs up behind hers and draping an arm across her waist.  
  
“Did I fall asleep on you? Mmm, I’m sorry.” He nuzzled her hair away from the nape of her neck and pressed a kiss there. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt so… comforted… by someone’s presence. Apparently, you don’t even have to be in the room with me, just the knowledge you’re nearby puts my mind at ease. I haven’t slept so well since I was a boy.”  
  
“I thought you said you didn’t find me sedating.”  
  
“Oh, no. Exhilarating, challenging, soothing, maybe even exhausting in the right context.” He pulled her snugly against him and cupped her through her pajamas, sending a thrill through her drowsy body. “But not sedating. Never that.”  
  
She hummed her approval and rocked herself against his hand, letting him know she wouldn’t mind if he continued. He was more than happy to oblige, slipping his hand beneath her clothes to find her already slick with arousal; he made a strangled noise in his throat and the arm he had snaked between her and the mattress pulled her even tighter against him.  
  
“Are _you_ always this eager or am I getting special— _mmm_.” She interrupted him with a kiss, craning her neck and holding him close with a hand at the back of his head to maintain the awkward angle.  
  
She could feel him growing hard against her and suddenly his fingers weren’t enough; she pulled her pajamas and underwear as far down as she could, pressed close to him as she was. He started to shift his way down the mattress, but she reached back a desperate hand, holding him to her, halting his descent.  
  
“No?” She moaned from the sensations his relentless fingers were producing and shook her head, tugging at his pajama bottoms. She whimpered when he withdrew his hand. He rolled away and shoved his pajamas down one-handed, kicking them off. When he turned back to her, she gasped at the heat of his bare skin. “Would you prefer if I…?” He pressed himself against her ass, his fingers damp at her hip as he rubbed his cock against her smooth, soft skin.  
  
She rocked her hips back to meet him and gasped, “Oh God, please, I need…”  
  
He trailed his hand around to her inner thigh and lifted, pressing forward at the hips to slip his cock between her legs. He made a few teasing thrusts, dragging himself through her slickness, before he reached down to align himself and slid inside her.  
  
Free from the constraints of urgency and her makeshift restraints, it felt as if his hands were everywhere at once. There was something extremely sensual and indulgent about the way he approached lovemaking when she let him take the lead, like he wanted to trace and memorize every inch of her. She’d gotten a taste of it that first night when he tended to her so thoroughly after he’d already been sated. While all of their encounters had been passionate in a way she thought was reserved for people other than her—a notion she was more than pleased to be disabused of—having his complete and total attention focused on coaxing her to new heights of excitement was overwhelming in an entirely different way.  
  
“I would apologize for having such a hair-trigger lately if you weren’t right there with me,” he said, surging into her again with a twist of his hips, punctuating his words with open-mouth kisses up her neck. “Still, I feel I’ve given you a false representation of my finesse in this area. When I’m not overcome with unbridled lust,” he paused to take her earlobe between his teeth, tugging at it lightly, “I am more than capable of controlling myself long enough to ensure—”  
  
She dragged her nails across his scalp as she clenched her inner muscles around him. He grunted and plunged into her in a series of short, involuntary thrusts before he regained control of himself and stilled. He pulled her tightly to him at the waist, keeping her lower half from moving independently of his.  
  
“You don’t play fair,” he growled.  
  
“And you talk way too much.”  
  
He chuckled; the vibrations it sent through her made her gasp and dig her nails into his forearm. He hissed at the pin-pricks of pain, and slowly, agonizingly, he started to move again.  
  
Soon enough, she felt balanced on the razor edge of release, his thrusts teasing at the friction and pressure she needed, but not quite delivering enough to push her over. She tried to direct his caressing hands down to touch her, but he kept skimming over where she needed them the most. She growled in frustration and he chuckled again.  
  
“What, you can dish is out, but you can’t take it?” he asked, sliding a hand up to trace her throat, her jaw, her cheek. Blindly, she turned to close her mouth around his fingers, nipping and sucking at the skin. He sped up his pace with a groan.  
  
When his rhythm started to become more and more erratic, he finally brought his other hand down to touch her; she screamed her release through teeth sunk into his palm and he tipped over the edge with her, thrusting frantically through both of their climaxes.  
  
They drifted off to sleep still wrapped around each other.  
  


* * *

  
  
The next morning found Liz wandering into the kitchen while the first rays of sunlight were shining through the window over the sink. Red greeted her with a lingering good morning kiss and pushed a steaming mug of coffee into her hands.  
  
“Try that and tell me it’s not a hundred times better than the pre-ground caffeinated sawdust from the grocery store or the stale burnt swill that passes for coffee at the Post Office,” he said, turning his attention back to whatever he had on the counter.  
  
She shook her head at his unnecessary hyperbole, but cupped her chilled hands around the mug and took a cautious sip.  
  
“Jesus, that _is_ good.” She closed her eyes and inhaled, letting the rich, earthy aroma wash over her. “Let me guess, you know a guy who has it shipped in fresh from Brazil every morning.”  
  
Red smiled at her over his shoulder. “I’ll have him send you some next time I talk to him.”  
  
She snorted; she hadn’t been serious and she was pretty sure he wasn’t either, but it really didn’t matter. She made a mental note to keep an eye out for a delivery just in case and came up behind him; she laid a hand between his shoulder blades, peering over his shoulder to see what he was doing. Preparing ingredients for an omelette by the look of things.  
  
“You’re cooking for me?”  
  
“Mmm, I like to provide sustenance for my overnight guests whenever possible,” he said, turning just far enough to meet her eyes, his own dancing with amusement. “Unlike some people.”    
  
“Red, I burn take-out.”  
  
His surprised bark of laughter caught her off guard. She moved her hand up to run her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck as she watched him slice mushrooms with a deft hand. She could have predicted he’d be good with a blade—hell, he probably knew forty-seven different ways to kill someone with a paring knife. Still, there was something satisfying about watching the competent, confident way he moved.  
  
He turned to nuzzle at her neck. “You think you can handle the toast?” he murmured, his lips brushing her ear.  
  
“Depends, do you like charcoal?”  
  
His answering chuckle rumbled through his chest. She raked her nails down his neck and, feeling him shiver in response, gave the base of it one final caress.  
  
She filled the toaster with slices of freshly baked bread she was sure came from the bakery they’d had lunch in the day before. The ticking of the toaster was soon joined by the sizzle of eggs cooking over on the stove. She hadn’t had a home-cooked breakfast in a long time. Even if she could manage to cook a decent egg—and she really couldn’t; breakfast foods in particular were her mortal enemies—she usually didn’t have the time and ended up shoving a few mouthfuls of leftovers into her mouth on her way out the door when she ate anything at all. Her stomach growled.  
  
“Your cooking can’t possibly be as bad as you make it out to be, Lizzy, not when you’re such a quick study at everything else.”  
  
“If you heard Tom talk about it, you’d think it was a sign of the apocalypse.” Red looked over at her with an eyebrow raised, waiting to see if she would elaborate. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a little good-natured teasing, but there was always something cutting about the way he did it. Whenever he caught me trying to cook something, he’d ask if we needed to talk, like I was angry about something and making him eat my cooking was my way of getting back at him. Or he’d say there were kids starving in Africa, so I shouldn’t waste food, that kind of thing. Bastard wasted more food than I ever did.”  
  
After she finished buttering the toast, she sank down onto one of the seats in the breakfast nook, glaring dejectedly into her coffee mug as if it were to blame for all her problems. She shouldn’t have mentioned Tom. It was becoming easier and easier to put him out of her mind with Red to distract her, but she could feel herself falling into a familiar spiral of dark thoughts and, once she fell, it was extremely difficult to drag herself out.    
  
Red sensed the shift in her mood. He set the finished omelettes on the table in front of her, then came over to crouch down next to her chair.  
  
“You’re allowed to mourn what should have been, Lizzy. He didn’t deserve you. He didn’t deserve to breathe the same air.”  
  
“And you do?” she snapped before she could stop herself, her anger making her cruel. He didn’t even flinch.  
  
“Of course not,” he said, emphatic and matter-of-fact, like it hadn’t occurred to him as a possibility. She felt a twinge of guilt. Red might have questionable motives about a lot of things, but he never gave her any reason to think he felt entitled to being with her. Quite the opposite, in fact.  
  
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”  
  
“Yes, you did,” he said. The was no judgement in his tone, only understanding. “I _don’t_ deserve you. After everything I’ve done, I don’t deserve the chance you’ve given me, yet you still gave it. You have a file on me as thick as _The Fellowship of the Ring_ detailing only the misdeeds your government is _aware_ of, and you still gave it.” He rested a cautious hand on her knee, tracing a pattern with his thumb.  
  
“You asked me the other night why I chose you. It’s because I thought, out of everyone, you would be able to see the man behind The Concierge of Crime, and you did. I laid all that out on the table the day you met me. You’re my second chance. Although I didn’t mean it quite like this.”  
  
“You’re the king of making profound statements that explain everything and nothing at the same time.”  
  
He quirked a smile. “Are you trying to tell me you find me frustrating, Lizzy?”  
  
“You have no idea.”  
  
“Oh, I think I do,” he said, his eyes crinkling with amusement as he spoke.  
  
She glanced down into her mug absently and frowned when she saw that it was empty.  
  
“Here,” he said, taking the mug from her, “I’ll refill that for you. Get your caffeine fix from actual coffee for once.”  
  
They lapsed into silence while they ate. It was companionable if not exactly comfortable. Her thoughts were still too tumultuous, too bleak, too hateful. She snuck glances at Red while his attention was safely on his food. She was tempted to vent her frustrations with him the way they’d been doing the past few days, but she had to be at work in an hour. Still, she ran the risk of brooding all day again if she didn’t do something.  
  
“I think hindsight has made me a terrible person,” she said, spearing an errant mushroom with her fork.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“I’ve spent hours lying awake at night since Tom was captured wondering what it would have been like if things had gone differently. If I hadn’t been so desperate to cling to the image I built of our relationship and noticed there was something off sooner, maybe I could have… I don’t know. Stopped him? Saved some lives?” She sighed. “Sometimes I think it would have been better if Zamani had killed him.”  
  
“That doesn’t make you a terrible person, it makes you human.” Red reached across the table for her hand, ran a finger along her scar. “If Zamani had succeeded, you would have been spared the fallout from Tom’s duplicity and the pain that came along with it. It’s only natural to wonder how that might have changed things. How different you would be today if you never had to experience his betrayal.”  
  
She studied Red’s face as he spoke; he wouldn’t look at her. While he never confirmed he was responsible for Zamani’s attempt on Tom’s life, she always knew in the back of her mind he had never denied it either. For Red, that was as good as confirmation. She didn’t think she would have ever come to a point when she could be OK with that, yet here on the other side of Tom’s deceit, she found that she was.  
  
“That kind of betrayal,” he said, staring at their hands, “it shakes a person to their core, makes them reevaluate everything they know about themselves, doubt everyone they trust. It’s a wound that can take a lifetime to heal, if it ever does. You could have avoided that.”  
  
He was speaking from experience, but what experience, she couldn’t say. It was deeper than the betrayal of an associate, of a superior, even of a friend. She knew so little of the circumstances surrounding him turning his back on his country that didn’t come sanitized and summarized in black, white, and red ink; in moments like this, she felt that lack of information, lack of context, like a jagged hole, a missing piece in the puzzle that was Raymond Reddington.  
  
She didn’t know what to make of this side of him, only that it showed through the cracks in his armor most obviously when they talked about Tom.  
  
“He would have gone to his grave a loyal husband, a devoted teacher, an aspiring father. I can’t deny that it would have been easier, but it wouldn’t have been real. I would have seen his death as a tragedy and remembered our time together fondly. He doesn’t deserve to be remembered fondly.” She tugged lightly on his hand, urging him to meet her eyes. “I never would have trusted you.”  
  
Once he finally made eye contact, it was as if he couldn’t bring himself to look away. “You’d rather experience the soul-crushing pain of betrayal than have a reason not to trust me?”  
  
She held his gaze in silence for a long moment before she spoke. “You might want to keep that in mind.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“I need a vacation,” Liz said, flopping face down on top of covers next to Red. The task force had managed to capture their target, but only just. Ressler and Meera escaped serious injury by the skin of their teeth and Liz wasn’t terribly much better off. “Where the hell do you find these people?”  
  
“The deepest, darkest recesses of the world’s underbelly,” he said, gravely. “Or, you know, the corner office, various embassies, Congress…” He trailed off with amused lilt to his voice. He hadn’t changed yet for bed, and the image of him lounging in his day clothes—dark vest unbuttoned, shoes kicked off, tie undone—was something she never wanted to forget. “Or did you mean that hypothetically? Lizzy?”  
  
She tore her gaze away from his chest to find him peering down at her over his reading glasses. “Hmm, what?”  
  
“You’re not listening, are you?”  
  
“No, sorry,” she said, reaching out to run her fingers up his forearm. He set his book and glasses on his nightstand and moved down to face her, cupping her cheek and tracing his thumb along the scrap on her jaw in a sort of apology.  
  
“Were you serious about the vacation? Because I can always orchestrate the takedown of a low-level Blacklister in some far-off, exotic place, tell Cooper it’ll take a week when it will only take a day, and insist I just _have_ to have you with me.”  
  
She blinked at him, not so much surprised by his suggestion as the fact that she could almost see herself taking him up on it. “That sounds more appealing than it should.”  
  
“It does, doesn’t it?”  
  
She slid closer to him, tucked herself against his side, and rested her head on his chest. He pressed a kiss to her temple and wrapped his arm around her. She fell silent for a long, long while.  
  
“What would we do on this hypothetical vacation?”  
  
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It’s a fabulous concept, I think you’d appreciate it.”  
  
“Going too long without doing something productive makes me stir-crazy.”  
  
“I’m sure if you twist my arm, we could find something productive to do.” She glanced up at him with an eyebrow raised; he threw back his head and laughed. “You have a truly filthy mind, Lizzy. What did I tell you about innuendo? I meant something more along the lines of teaching you to cook.”  
  
Her own laughter died in her throat when she saw the expression on his face. “Wait, you’re serious?”  
  
“With all the Chinese takeout you eat, your blood probably has more MSG than iron at this point.” He shrugged. “Besides, it’s a useful skill to have.”     
  
That familiar ache settled into her chest yet again and she could feel the sudden burn of tears behind her eyes. Chances were he had no idea how much it meant to her for him offer that so casually, for him to have confidence she would be able to improve in an area she’d always felt inadequate in, but had never really been taken seriously about in the past. She swallowed around the lump in her throat and asked, “Are you trying to make me fall in love with you?”  
  
“What, by making small, thoughtful gestures, making you feel like a human being worthy of respect and affection?” He tilted his head and studied her face. “I could easily accuse you of the same thing.”  
  
“I’m not—That wasn’t what I—“  
  
“I know, Lizzy,” he said, suddenly serious. “You’re doing quite well in that regard without any extra effort on your part.” His cheek twitched in an uncomfortable half-smile that disappeared so quickly she almost thought she imagined it.  
  
“ _Red_.” Liz worked her jaw but her voice refused to cooperate with her. Rendered speechless by a cryptic, implied declaration of love—that’s what her life had become.  
  
“It’s OK,” he said. “It’s fine. I’m sorry, I don’t want you to—”  
  
Liz grabbed him by the back of his neck and pressed her lips to his. If she surprised him, he didn’t show it, immediately bringing his hand up to thread through the hair at the nape of her neck. He tilted his head for a better angle and parted his lips, encouraging her to deepen the kiss. She moaned into his mouth, but pulled back before she could get carried away.  
  
“—Feel obligated,” he said, breathless, continuing right where he left off. “Whatever feelings I might have for you, they come with no expectations of reciprocity.”  
  
“Red, I… If I ever…” She toyed with his buttons, slipping one or two from their holes so she could rest her fingers on the skin of his chest over his heart. It beat strong and fast as he came down from their kiss. “It wouldn’t be because I think I’m obligated. You know me better than that.”  
  
“You’re right. Allow an old man a moment of insecurity.”  
  
“Old man, my ass,” she said, elbowing him lightly in the ribs. She settled back against him where his shoulder met his chest and heaved a heavy sigh. “Everything would be so much simpler if I didn’t need you.”  
  
He looked down and shot her a tight, knowing smile. If he didn’t need her, she never would have met him. She wondered if it was selfish or foolish to be glad that he did.  
  
“Relying on someone out of necessity and shared circumstance, it bonds you. Relying on someone because you want to, because you choose to… That’s something different.” He paused, shifting so he could face her more comfortably, and framed her face with his hands. “In time, perhaps I can be that person for you.”  
  
She brought her hand up to his, running her thumb along the back of it as it cupped her face; she met and held his gaze. “I hope someday I can be that person for you.”  
  
He pressed his lips to her forehead in a lingering kiss. “You’re well on your way, sweetheart. You’re well on your way.”


End file.
